Oral History: Part 1
Posted on March 31st, 2024 by Emilaina Acacia

“Laho,” Emily rehearsed, sitting in her office chair and spinning back and forth, “Laho l’amelie, oro jujiben?” She clicked her tongue and scolded herself, “You’ve got this.”

The tribal dialect of her father’s people was one of her first languages, and yet she would always doubt herself when she was speaking to people who lived on the island full time, or especially people who had no other languages in the home growing up. 

Most of the elders weren’t sticklers about it, and most spoke Federation Standard or had their own translator device. Emily’s grandmother, though? She would try to trip you up on purpose, correct your grammar, even ask for random words just to quiz you. It was well meaning, an old woman wanting to preserve her tribal culture, but Emily had learned to get into the right headspace to talk to her. 

Emily took off her combadge and disabled the universal translator, then finally hit the button to call her grandmother, leaning back in her chair and steeling herself. The com ‘rang’ for almost a minute before she appeared, her video quality questionable.

“Oh? Emilaina! My beloved granddaughter,” the old Betazoid woman, Keliara, began in the Akosai dialect, “to what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Good morning, grandma,” Emily had made sure to call in the mid-morning island time, which happened to be evening on the ship, “How are you?”

“I asked you a question,” Keliara lightly scolded, and Emily cringed. She had failed to deviate from her script.

“Well, I…” Emily gulped. Why was she nervous? The worst answer she could get would be no, “I believe it may be time for my qaremor.”

Quaremor: meaning “adult dance”, a coming of age ritual usually performed in one’s thirties or forties. 

A beat of silence passed, tense for Emily but amusing for her grandmother. 

“Isss that ssso?” she mused, then held the PADD she was using for the call a bit further from her face, “Well then, you know what I will ask.”

“I do!” Emily chirped, pulling out her jasori. The literal translation would be ‘story’, but it referred to the traditional garment worn to bonfires and other major events. It was about four yards of shimmering green fabric, a lighter shade like the rest of her family, and had intricate gold embroidering running up about a third of its length. The embroidery was of vines and branches with leaves and flowers, each one representing some life event. There were leather tassels with beads hanging from them sewn along where Emily’s shoulder would go when the garment was wrapped, as well as feathers hanging from a band tied around one corner that would be removed and worn around the arm. Emily held the fabric up, running the embroidery past the camera while her grandmother observed and nodded thoughtfully. 

“You have quite a jasori going there, kai’i,” Emily couldn’t help but smile and roll her eyes at the use of her cutesy family nickname, it meant “middle child”, though fortunately her face was concealed from the camera as she did so, “So, I must ask… which stories do you wish to perform?”

Emily took a deep breath. This was it, she had thought about it long and hard and she was absolutely certain, “…all of them.”

Keliana cycled from surprise to joy to concern, then finally settled on a serious look, “Kai’i, you know this takes a full five days at least,” which she did know, in addition to which Betazed’s days were slightly longer than those on Earth, “Many have tried and failed, there is no need to do the storytelling for more than a day! Some even do only a few hours.”

Though her words made it sound like she wanted Emily to change her mind, a wicked glint in her eye told another story. She was incredibly, almost indescribably proud that one of her many grandchildren wanted to take on the challenge of learning the complete oral history. Fewer than a half dozen per generation would, and that was counting all the tribes on the island, each of which had a slightly different version of the stories. Emily’s father was one of thirteen siblings and only one, his younger sister Sharao, had performed all the stories at her qaremor. For her it had taken almost seven days.

“I am certain,” Emily said firmly.

“Well, now that is very exciting,” Keliana mused, “I will have to see if your otherfather is available.”

Emily blinked. She hadn’t even considered who would be her tutor, or that her otherfather was a possible candidate. She remembered hearing him tell stories as a kid, but she hadn’t realized he knew them all. It was typical for the oldest available person to be the tutor, and though she didn’t know exactly how old he was, she knew he was pretty old.

Emily’s mind raced momentarily with the logistics of it all. Top of the list would be ensuring that the Captain was okay with her hosting a visitor for a few months. She was certain that wouldn’t be an issue, but she still had to ask.

In addition, she would need some ceremonial items. Her grandmother told her not to worry about any of it, she was excited to send along what would be needed. The two wrapped up their call fairly shortly, both left smiling at a blank screen after the line went dead. 

This was going to be hard, but it was also going to be fun.